Carputer
2008 – 12 – 01
After several vehicular installs and PC maintenance, the paper box was literally falling apart
so I opted to get an actual Mini-ITX case for it. (The hard drive in this is mounted upside down. Oh well.)
I didn’t get one that was for mounting in a car because I didn’t find any car specific ones that had space for a PCI card. I bought the cheapest one that had room for PCI that I could find. 
Amazon doesn’t carry the one I used. And the only picture I have of that is where its mounted now. In my transportable PC that I use at work.
I was planning to operate XP from flash. But when it came right down to it, I opted to stay with spinning disks. I was able to shink my Windows SP2 install with WinAmp, Streets and Trips, and Office to around 3G with the help of XPLite and Partition Magic. A 4G CF card which is guaranteed to work is $75.00. Too rich for my blood. I found a 2.5″ 250GB SATA drive for a little under $44.00 before shipping. The drive is practically silent. It will hold all my music. (Currently arround 56G.) The best prices I found on ‘thumb drives’ using 8 8G units for about $120 and I would need hubs etc. Hard drive won. I do want an alternate booting meathod when XP screws up. Give it time, it’s a M$ product, after all. I am thinking UBCD4Win on a thumb drive.
Running Streets and Trips 2009. Using a Twiddler2 for keyboard and mouse.
Finally installed a Hagstrom Electronics KE24(They have USB version now.) for use with WinAmpwith WinampKeyController (search for it)
Using a WIFI PCI card.
The Carputer is housed in the same model box as this one. Many differences with this install. Firstly the hard drive operates right side up. It doesn’t have an optical drive in the car. It uses a M1-ATX power supply. And at this time it doesn’t have wifi. (Simply due to budget) It will acquire one of these for nightly backup to one of HifiJoe’s home office’s servers. (and for email etc. in wifi hot spots.) It uses a Twiddler2 for keyboard and mouse fuctions. (Much more compact than a regular keyboard and mouse.) As it’s not being used as a front end for MythTV it doesn’t have an ir receiver.
I have looked into booting/running this PC from CompactFlash but so far havn’t proceeded with hardware purchases due to limited budgetthe fact IT’S TOO BEEP!!! EXPENSIVE. I have found some tools that are priced much better than the ones in this article. For resizing partitions I have had success with Qparted on the Knoppix CD on Unix. For Windows Pation Magic is what you want. For copying partitions under Windows I have been using software from “The Free Country”
Software
It’s running WindBlows XP. For gps software presently MicroSoft Streets and Trips(unlike Gentoo, MSS&T can not be updated, so it will probally be replaced with something that can). Also running Word, Excel and Outlook.
Operation To switch on carpurter; car key switch must be in on or accessory positions. PC (Latch) Enable switch must be closed and PC Start button pressed until PC stat LED glows. Carputer stays on until car battery falls below 11 volts or PC (Latch) Enable switch is opened or Windows is shut down.
To switch on Monitor inverter; PC must be on, ACC or RAP (Retained Accessory Power)must be on, monitor enable must be closed and its start button pressed until it starts. Monitor inverter stays on until PC shuts down or key switch is switched off and front left door is opened.
(What I have stated above is almost true. But really who wants to press and hold a push button to keep their computer on?When the Latch enable switches are closed, the latches will hold the desired function until something relases the latch.)
(On the 2006 Ranger: car door switches are biased high but go low ie ground when their door is ajar)
R1 is a single pole 10 amp idec
R2 & R3 are dual pole 10 amp idecs
R5 is a 40 amp single pole Potter and Brumfield
All diodes are 1 amp 50 piv
3 days with R.A.P. makes me want the monitor to turn off with the key. So this will allow me to have the monitor follow ACC or RAP.
There are times when I want music w/o having to insert the key. And other times when I want it to shut off sooner than opening the door. Hence “RAP On” and “RAP Off”. 
3 vehicles ago Home for carputer
After living with this setup for one year plus. I have decided that a little more convenience is desired. I will budget this year for the Hagstrom Electronics KE24 Encoder.
It has support for up to 144 keys and macros up to 16 keystokes. I plan to setup the following:
Toggle GPS (macro) Alt+T G S
Toggle Map Follow (macro) Alt+T G M
Close Window Alt+F4
Swith Window Alt+Tab
Map Day (macro) Alt+V M R
Map Night (macro) Alt+V M N
Zoom In (macro) Alt+V Z I
Zoom Out (macro) Alt+V Z O
PC Day Theme (macro) Ctrl+Esc R D
(runs bat file which pulls up day theme)
PC Night Theme (macro) Ctrl+Esc R N
(runs bat file which pulls up night theme)
If you would like to do the same I’d be happy to help for a fee.
JoeHifi
2186 Jackson Keller #430
San Antonio, TX 78213
USA
info@joehifi.com
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As stated elsewhere on the linked pages. The information provided on this page comes without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. Your milage may vary.
